Magpie Fans In Full Force At Swansea – Europe Place Possible

Written by Dr. Ed Harrison

11:03am Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

Commented 17 times

It’s hardly surprising that Newcastle will be well-supported at the Liberty Stadium on Friday afternoon.

A terrific shot of Alan Pardew applauding Newcastle fans It’s along journey down to South Wales, all of 350 miles, but the Liberty Stadium is sold out for Friday’s game, which will be televised live around the world, and that means Newcastle supporters have snapped up the away ticket allocation for the game.

As we said that’s always the case and not surprising for those very dedicated Newcastle fans, who represent us all extremely well the away Stadiums.

Swansea have done great this season, but Alan Pardew knows that the side is within sight of a Europa League position next season for the first time for six years, since we last qualified back in 2006 under Glenn Roeder.

And that’s the big carrot at the end of a long tunnel this season for the Magpies.

This is what the Newcastle manager had to say today about the Swansea game, and possible European football for Newcastle next season:

“The greatest reward I can give them is European football,” “It’ll be lovely to see them but Swansea’s tough place to go,”

“They’ve done brilliantly at home. They keep the ball well and move you around. It’s going to be a difficult game.”

“We’ve had a focus all year about the next game,” “We shouldn’t get away from that, and neither should our fans.

“They can dream of the Champions League, or winning the league – I don’t mind. It’s great for them that we’re in the mix. We’ll just go to the next game.”

Every single win Newcastle can put on the board in the final 7 games of the season brings us closer to a European place next season, which would be simply fantastic.

Newcastle are currently 14 points better off than at the same time last year, and we hope that points difference can keep increasing as the season comes to an end on May 13th – unlucky for some.

17 comments so far

Swansea’s going to be tough, no doubt about it. I think the important thing is not to lose and to keep our unbeaten run going. A draw would be acceptable, but we should go for the win as we have momentum and confidence on our side, plus a lot of our key players are in form.

I can imagine Swansea working us hard and making us chase the ball, unlocking pockets of space with their pace and passing. Our subs will play a big part on Friday as I think fatigue will start to set in. They’ll work us harder around the pitch than Liverpool did. We’ll need another tight game at the back, midfielders running their socks off and some more magic up front, but we did all that away at West Brom and again on Sunday, so there’s no reason to doubt we can do it again. But the Swans at home will go for the jugular and try to beat us, so I feel that this will be a tough game for both teams.

after watchin the totenham vs swansea game i think that were gonna need serious work rate from ben arfa or i think pardew will bring him on as a sub depending on the score line but to beat swansea were gonna have to chase the ball down in packs.

Come on guys – we’re talking about Swansea here – not Barcelona. Yes they’ve had some good press lately about their style of play but keeping hold of the ball and knocking it around in style means nothing when your ‘e faced with our dynamic front three. Goals win matches, not fancy football, and I take Benny, Ba and the electric Cisse to cause them no end of problems. 2-0 to the Toon and the European wagon to keep rollin’.

Depending on Guthrie’s fitness I’d like to see Jonas back on the left on Friday. I think our tactic will be to counter attack, and for that we could use his pace and trickery in midfield. Also he’ll get back and protect the full-back and help us win possession back. Guthrie played well against Liverpool so if he’s fit I wouldn’t be surprised if he plays, but he can be a bit hit and miss for me – he was pretty awful vs Norwich. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Tiote gets a rest soon as Pardew wants to keep him fresh and injury-free for the run in (and suspension-free too!) If we rest Tiote soon, Guthrie will play for sure – perhaps in the Bolton game. I’m not sure what Pards will do this Friday but he may want to stay unchanged from the weekend, assuming Guthrie’s fit of course. I just feel we’d be missing a trick by playing Jonas at LB again.

I called for us to now go into ‘overdrive’ a few weeks back, so glad we’ve timed it impeccably.

Take each game as it comes, but I can’t help thinking, if we win these next 4 games, we’ll be at least 5th, within a whisker of 4th or, perhaps even in 4th. if that were to come about, I think the squad seeing itself in 4th spot, with those 3 difficult games to go, would be so energized by it that we could feasibly defy all the odds.

Cmon lads, despite their playstyle, Swansea has inferior players in most areas. They’re a one trick pony. Disrupt their play and make them lose possession and we’ll have em cornered, same as Stoke. This is what Pardew is good at. Finding gameplans and having his players execute them. We’ve seen it all season.

Swansea as we know can knock the ball about well but are suseptible to a quick breakaway and we have the players now to exploit that, they are not very clever at dealing with crosses either, its a very interesting game, got a feeling our super sub shola might have a positive say in this one in the last 20 mins!

I wonder what the odds are for Newcastle to finish 3rd? Because if the players think that we have a chance at fourth, surely we have just got to half that chance to make it third, seems third and fourth are both the same distance away. It’s unlikely for Tottenham and Arsenal to drop six points more than us in the last 7 games, and on top of that Chelsea to drop points to go below us aswell. However, I’ve seen more unusual things happen. Like Newcastle being nine points clear with three games to go, then loosing the title. . . . So Newcastle to get 6 points more than those teams with 7 games left, isn’t impossible. Whoever wins in the game at Chelsea’s ground will probably finish higher. But Spurs havn’t been the best, and have the odd tricky game themselves. And Arsenal face Man City also, and a couple other tricky teams, so I wouldn’t write us off. Having said all that blar though, I think we’ll finish 6th, which is still great.

….thought I’d let you know too for an immediate pre match drink there are 2 pubs, A Harvester and Frankie + Benny’s right next to the Ground, both of which welcome away fans. Also a decent big Chippy, Rossi’s, just across the dual carriageway again next to the ground.

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health update

My latest bone scans and CAT scans were completed on Wednesday of this week and yesterday I met with my oncologist Dr. Dhruva to look over the results.

The stage four cancer remains stabilized and has not spread any further over the last six months.

I was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer in early 2017 after being in remission for six years.

The cancer metastasized through the bones to different parts of the body and the treatment I am undergoing is hormone treatment.

There is no cure for stage 4 cancer but there are treatments (like Hormone treatment) that attempt to prolong life.

I am upbeat with the results and remain in awe of the doctors and nurses at the Rex Cancer Center here in Raleigh.

It's truly humbling to see how inspiring they are with their patients.

Ed Harrison

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